Thursday, April 28, 2011

When we first moved to Cleveland, we lived near University Circle, just up the hill from Little Italy. Our apartment was a block from the entrance to Lake View Cemetery. I can't really remember if we walked in the cemetery very much before we brought home our puppy, but afterward we both spent many hours walking there. The cemetery is very beautiful. Lots of lovely plantings; gorgeous, elaborate monuments and lots of history. Eliot Ness's ashes were scattered there. James A. Garfield is interred there. John D. Rockefeller is buried there. The Wade Memorial Chapel (Jeptha Wade founded Western Union) is stunningly beautiful with its Tiffany stained glass window and mosaics. Mostly we just liked to be outside, though. Living on the 4th floor of an apartment building with a Siberian Husky puppy meant that we needed to go for lots of walks. Much of our walking occurred in the cemetery.

A couple days ago we went back there for a walk. Spring is especially beautiful with flowering trees and a hill of daffodils.

Not the greatest photos, taken with my phone, but you get the idea of just how massive this planting is.

It just goes on and on.

The magnolias are lovely here right now.

And the other flowering and budding trees provide hazes of color just about everywhere you look.

I always have to visit a sculpture of a little elf (or maybe a fairy) that we happened upon one time.

The first time we saw it, Holden was busy sniffing the plantings and when he looked up he jumped back, startled. He studied it tentatively for a while before he realized that it wasn't a real person.

Each time I walk there I notice statues and monuments that I'd never noticed before. Some are very unusual (at least to my eye). Like this one:

A tree stump! And I'm sure I'd seen this warrior angel many times before, but this time he caught my attention.

We visited Rockefeller's grave and I saw that on both his gravestone and monument people had left coins.

As we were leaving, another sculpture caught my attention.

I couldn't get close enough to read the stones because the ground was too muddy, so I'm not sure of the significance of the horse.

Despite coming home with muddy shoes, we had a nice walk and a nice trip down memory lane.

It looks beautiful there, especially the trees. And what an amazing array of interesting sculptures. It reminded me of a book I've just read "Her Fearful Symmetry' by Audrey Neiffenger that is set in Highgate (London) cemetery. Highgate is more Victorian gothic but shares that creative ecclectic mix of history and memories. If you google Highgate then you'll see what I mean.

Thanks for sharing these lovely photos and taking us on a walk with you :-)

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